Thursday evenings at 7 pm, the Berkman Blog Group meets to discuss blogs, wikis, feeds, mashups, and anything else of interest in the intersection of the social and the technical online. We welcome anyone who’s interested in these issues, from newbie to tech guru.

This week, we’ll be joined by Hasty and Max, of the new map mashup site Povo.com. As they put it, “Povo is a wiki-based, collaborative tool that lets everyone in the community come together to create, evolve, and maintain city-wide and local neighborhood knowledge.”

The full agenda is available on the Blog Group blog.

The media from Ethan Zuckerman’s talk at the Watson Institute at Brown University from earlier this week has been posted.

(Image via CC License from moblogdci)

Berkman fellow David Weinberger will be a guest on Christopher Lydon’s Radio Open Source tomorrow at 7pm. David will be discussing his most recent work, Everything is Miscellaneous, which will be released by Times Books on May 1. Please come join us and celebrate the release of Everything is Miscellaneous this Monday, April 30 at Harvard Law School and the Berkman Center.

Tuesday, May 1, 12:30 pm
Berkman Center Conference Room
23 Everett Street, Second Floor, Cambridge, MA

Guest: Tony Ferraro and David Stone
Topic: Applications of Social Networking Technology to Medical Treatment

Social networks on the Internet are relatively new. Facebook was launched just a few years ago at Harvard, for example. Social networking technology is now finding application in a range of areas including business, education and in medical applications. Global corporations are using it to deliver the right information to the right people at the right time, tailored to their specific needs. This technology is also being implemented to help medical staff serve refugee populations such as those served by Richard Mollica, MD of the Harvard Trauma Center. (Author of Healing Invisible Wounds)

The Berkman Center is proud to have the opportunity to host a presentation by Tony Ferraro, President and CEO of 360Hubs and Dr. David Stone, a practicing psychologist, former Harvard Fellow in computer science and now a Visiting Scholar in GSAS who will speak about applications of social networking technology to the treatment of trauma survivors. Mr. Ferraro and Dr. Stone are currently working on a project that integrates the technology developed by Professor Ron Deibert’s team in Toronto, social networking technology from Mr. Ferraro’s company, and best practices in the treatment of trauma survivors (such as those at Virginia Tech), torture survivors and refugee populations.

This event will be webcast live. Webcast viewers can join the discussion through IRC text chat or in the virtual world Second Life. For information about our event webcasts and remote participation. If you miss the live chat, catch the podcast audio & video at MediaBerkman. Lunch is provided to those who RSVP. Please email rsvp at cyber.law.harvard.edu

University: Knowledge Beyond Authority
Internet & Society Conference 2007
Lead Up Event

Monday, April 30
12:30 pm - Berkman Center Conference Room
23 Everett St., Cambridge, MA

The role and mission of libraries is to collect, organise, preserve and make available the world’s cultural and scientific heritage for current and future generations. Publicly funded libraries operating for the public benefit support access to knowledge, as well as education and training, critical to developing nations whose human resource is central to their advancement. Digital technologies are transforming the way that libraries work. What new opportunities are being created? What challenges do we face and how is eIFL.net addressing them?

Teresa Hackett runs eIFL-IP “Advocacy for Access to Knowledge: copyright & libraries”, a programme to raise awareness in copyright issues for libraries in 50 developing and transition countries. The goal is to build capacity and expertise amongst the eIFL.net library community and to represent the interests of members in key international policy fora such as WIPO, UNESCO and the WTO. Previously, Teresa was the Director of the European library association (EBLIDA), provided technical support to the European Commission library research programme and was part of the team to establish electronic information centres at the British Council Germany. Teresa is currently an Expert Resource Person on the Copyright and Other Legal Matters Committee of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA-CLM). She is a chartered librarian and in 2004 completed a post-graduate diploma in legal studies at the Dublin Institute of Technology. Teresa is a native English speaker and speaks Irish, German and Dutch.

Please note, RSVP is required to attend this event - simply send an email to [rsvp at cyber.law.harvard.edu]

This event will be webcast live. Webcast viewers can join the discussion through IRC text chat or in the virtual world Second Life. If you miss the live chat, catch the podcast audio & video at MediaBerkman. Lunch is provided to those who RSVP. Please email rsvp at cyber.law.harvard.edu

Berkman fellow Ethan Zuckerman will be speaking at The Watson Institute for International Studies today at 4 pm on “Listening Widely (Wisely?) - International News and the Rise of Citizen Media“

Ethan Zuckerman is a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. His research focuses on the distribution of attention in mainstream and new media, and on the use of technology for international development. With Rebecca MacKinnon, he co-founded the international blogging project, “Global Voices”, which focuses on using weblogs around the world to close gaps in mainstream media coverage. Global Voices was honored with the Knight-Batten prize for innovation in journalism in 2006.

In 2000, Ethan founded Geekcorps, a technology volunteer corps that sends IT specialists to work on projects in developing nations, with a focus on West Africa. Previously Ethan helped found Tripod.com, one of the web’s first “personal publishing” sites. He blogs at http://blog.ethanzuckerman.com, http://www.globalvoicesonline.org , and http://www.worldchanging.com and lives in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts, USA with his wife and a small, fluffy cat.

Presented by the Social Entrepreneurship Seminar Series and the Global Media Project.

Geoffrey Kirkman, also a Berkman fellow, is associate director and a Watson fellow at the Watson Institute.

(An archived video will also be made available at the Watson Institute site within 24 hours of the event)

Video from John Clippinger’s talk this past Thursday on his new book, A Crowd of One: The Future of Individual Identity, has been posted.

David Weinberger has a nice summary on the talk and posted a summarized transcript of the question and answer session:

In re-imagining identity as the virtual and real worlds become more intertwingled, people will want control over their identities. They’ll want to have a persistent identity. They’ll want multiple identities, the ability to take their identity info in and out of different virtual worlds. They’ll want a range of degrees of identification, from anonymity to authenticated anonymity to complete disclosure. And they’ll want to develop peer networks of trust and authentication.

Berkman Center founder and Harvard Law Professor Charlie Nesson also attended the book party, and made some remarks on his blog:

john starts his lovely book
way in north new hampshire
follows his thought
all the way to war
feel this man
he is a man of peace

Web of Ideas with David Weinberger
Civility, Speech and Cyberbullying - A Code of Conduct for the Web?

Wednesday, April 25, 6:00pm
Berkman Center Conference Room
23 Everett Street, Second Floor, Cambridge, MA

As the blogosphere struggles to come to grips with the reality of cyberbullying - threats and intimidation, aimed most often at women bloggers - various proposals for codes of conduct have surfaced. But can there be a code? What type of conversation would such a code try to create? Is civil conversation an elitist ideal or the bedrock of all discourse? Is there room and even a role for uncivil discourse? What does our reaction to cyberbullying tell us about who we are and how we connect through talk?

David’s blog: http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/

Please RSVP to rsvp at cyber.law.harvard.edu

Tuesday, April 24, 12:30 pm
Berkman Center Conference Room
23 Everett Street, Second Floor, Cambridge, MA

Guests: Rob Faris and John Palfrey
Topic: Access Denied: the Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering

In May, the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) will host a public conference at the University of Oxford “to discuss the current state of play of Internet filtering worldwide.”

As a prelude to this landmark event, Rob Faris and John Palfrey will lead a discussion of Internet filtering and provide a glimpse of the results of ONI’s first global survey of Internet censorship. In the last year ONI has studied forty countries and found a substantial increase in Internet censorship, colored by complex and dynamic political, legal and social processes. The research will be documented in the forthcoming MIT Press book: Access Denied: the Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering.

Rob Faris is the ONI Research Director. John Palfrey is one of the project’s Principal Investigators.

The OpenNet Initiative is a partnership between the Citizen Lab at the Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto, the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School, the Advanced Network Research Group at the Cambridge Security Programme at Cambridge University, and the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford.

John Palfrey’s Bio
Rob Faris’ Bio

This event will be webcast live. Webcast viewers can join the discussion through IRC text chat or in the virtual world Second Life. For information about our event webcasts and remote participation. If you miss the live chat, catch the podcast audio & video at MediaBerkman. Lunch is provided to those who RSVP. Please email rsvp at cyber.law.harvard.edu

Josh Koppel on Form, Function, and Silly Putty: Making Media Flexible
Friday April, 20th, 6:00 pm
Kirkland House, JCR
Harvard University

Josh Koppel is a content creator. Ever since his high school days at the helm of his Chicago-based satirical publication ‘Citizen Poke’ in the early 1990s, he has argued that every piece of great media begins with a great story. While he began on paper with everything from prank prom invitations to his critically acclaimed (2000) book, ‘Good Grief,’ Koppel’s creative energy in more recent years has motivated him to explore new vehicles and audiences, such as broadband and cellular technology, for his unique blend of humor and narrative. Content creation in the 21st century presents many opportunities and challenges. Josh will spend his hour touching on transformation of the content production process; what is working and what isn’t; and what we have to look forward to in the future.

Co-sponsored by the Conversations with Kirkland and The Berkman Center for Internet & Society

Kirkland House JCR
95 Dunster Street
Cambridge, MA 02138